On good reasons the Chinese, Google and Bing crawl this section like crazy: They get state-of-the-art results for free. We do not only offer our own research, but other research results as well. Have a look at the Google ranks:

It took three years until Thomas Herndon found out, that Rogoff/Reinhart had a mistake in their EXCEL. The following five links show you how amazing different the speed in research is. Think, estimate, calculate by yourself“

Decide yourself, if our estimate, that Japan had excellent Social Capital was correct.

In June 2012 the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, published a study that confirmed our critics on the rating agencies.
The title: „Rating agencies, self-fulfilling prophecy and multiple equilibria? An empirical model of the European sovereign debt crisis 2009-2011“. You may download it here.

Research on alternative country ratings

It took five years unless the so called „Commons Index“, first published in 2007 by Alexander Dill at the Library of the Commons of the University of Indiana, USA, found a first reception in science.

Roland Bardy (Florida Gulf Coast University) and Maurizio Massaro (Udine University) published in June 2012 the Bardy-Massaro-Composite-Index . The Index contains the National Commons Product of the Basel Institute of Commons and Economics.

You work in a developing country? Read this short presentation to learn how you can measure social capital inyour community.

The very special aim in this section is to offer not only our own research. Providing research results is a key issue of our Institute. We differ in many ways from other Commoners. But the way we differ can only be explored by comparing our approach with the research of competitors, other organizations and institutions.

An these are the most recent influences and references to/on our work:

1) Nobel Laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen launched a report to the European Commission, initiated by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The 290-pages report appeared on September 14th in 2009.

2) Only four weeks before publishing the Stiglitz-Report the European Commission published a summary of it’s activities Beyond GDP and made sure that the next review of the GDP will not be before the year 2012:

4) Research from people within the Financial Industry such as from Ph.D. Konrad Hummler, owner of the Wegelin Private Bank in St. Gallen, Switzerland, can be of high value if it doesn’t repeat mainstream knowledge:

7) A singular and unfortunately not continued approach by the former Worldbank President Francois Bourguignon was the first report on the World’s Wealth from 2006. It didn’t reach a wide audience but here you can get it:

8) Our British colleagues from the the new economic foundation (nef) have recently published a report that compares the common value and/or damage of six professions in the UK. Read the funny-to-learn results:

9) The entrepreneur Peter Barnes published one of the rare books on commons and capitalism. Together with Alexander Dill from our Institute Peter Barnes is mentioned in the section „Postmodern economy“ in Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy. His major oeuvre is ready to be downloaded here:

What’s the difference between National Commons Index and other Indices? Let’s have a look at the most important international Indices:

Index Provider Importance/Costs

World Development Indicators Database/Country classification

World Bank

+++++

Human Development Index

United Nations Development Program

+++

Environmental Sustainability Index

Yale University

+++

World Database of Happiness

University of Rotterdam

++

Global Peace Index

Fund of Peace, Australia

+

Global Competitiveness Report

World Economic Forum

++

Wealth of Nations Report

World Bank

+++++

Shadow Economy Index

University of Linz, Austria

+

Annual Report of Development Effectiveness

World Bank

+++

World Values Survey

University of Stockholm, Sweden

++

Bertelsmann Transformation Atlas

Bertelsmann Stiftung, Germany

++

Country Strategy Papers

European Commission

++++

Happy Planet Index

New Economics Foundation, London

+

Living Planet Report

World Wildlife Fund

+++

Currently our approach, the Global Commons Index and the National Commons Product differ especially in the following points from conventional approaches:
1) We don’t create rankings. Because the importance and the impact of special Commons differ locally, the aim is only to explore existing commons, not to reclaim absent ones.
2) Our research and measuring of the Commons happens not only by analyzing existing statistics or creating theoretical or political positions but as well by local, regional or national qualitative research and meetings with the local people.3) We don’t believe in a competition between cultures, regions or states. Every culture, every region has it’s own unique Commons. We only help to explore, to highlight and to develop them. We completely accept the Status Quo of all people and cultures.
4) Therefore we also consider private commons such as private gifts, black labour and idealistic activities, not only labour that could also be organized through employment and money.
5) We are not primarely dedicated to create scientific knowledge but to improve the Social Capital of communities.